(a) Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to an apparatus and method for driving an electrophoretic display.
(b) Description of the Related Art
Recently, an electrophoretic display (EPD) and a liquid crystal display (LCD) have been actively developed as flat panel display device types.
The electrophoretic display includes a pixel having a switching element connected to an electrophoretic capacitor, an electrophoretic display panel assembly including a display signal line, a gate driver turning on/off the switching element of the pixel by outputting scanning signals of a gate-on voltage and a gate-off voltage to a gate line of the display signal line, a data driver applying data voltages to a pixel electrode through the switching element, which is turned on by outputting data voltages to a data line of the display signal line, and a signal controller controlling the gate driver and the data driver.
The electrophoretic capacitor includes two terminals. The first terminal is formed by the pixel electrode of the electrophoretic display panel assembly and the second terminal is formed by a common electrode. An electrophoretic layer including electrophoretic particles dispersed in a dielectric fluid are positioned between the two electrodes as a dielectric material. The common electrode receives a common voltage as a reference voltage, and the pixel electrode receives data voltages based on gray information such that the image display voltage corresponding to the difference between two voltages is applied with the electrophoretic particles. The electrophoretic particles, charged with a positive or negative polarity, are then moved between the two electrodes. The moving distance of the electrophoretic particles is controlled by the application of the image display voltage. In other words, the image display voltage is controlled by the level and the application time of the data voltage based on the gray information. As indicated above, if the level and the application time of the data voltage based on the gray information are controlled in each pixel, the electrophoretic particles are located at various positions between the pixel electrode and the common electrode to display the images with various grays.
Information disclosed in the Background section is only for enhancement of understanding the background of the invention.